loading loading...

Jazz - A Film By Ken Burns Details

2000 Certificate Ex
  • Rated:
  • 70
  • from 340 members

For the third part of his American Trilogy--following THE CIVIL WAR and BASEBALL--Ken Burns takes on jazz, "that most American of art forms." The 10-part, 19-hour film begins with the music's roots in post-Civil War New Orleans and concludes roughly a century later. The story focuses not only on the personalities and events .. Read more

Starring Buddy Bolden, Sidney Bechet, Duke Ellington, Freddie Keppard
Director Ken Burns
Genres Music/Musical

Sign up Jazz - A Film By Ken Burns DVD

Buy From: £57.93

loading loading...

Jazz - A Film By Ken Burns cover art

Jazz - A Film By Ken Burns

For the third part of his American Trilogy--following THE CIVIL WAR and BASEBALL--Ken Burns takes on jazz, "that most American of art forms." The 10-part, 19-hour film begins with the music's roots in post-Civil War New Orleans and concludes roughly a century later. The story focuses not only on the personalities and events that helped define the music but also on the social and cultural climate in which they emerged, making KEN BURNS' JAZZ a film about more than just music.

Starring Buddy Bolden, Sidney Bechet, Duke Ellington, Freddie Keppard, Dizzy Gillespie, Artie Shaw, Fats Waller, Glenn Miller, Sonny Rollins, Louis Armstrong, David Keith
Director Ken Burns
Studio DD VIDEO
Run time DVD: 12 hrs 30 mins
Certificate Certificate Ex
Genres Music/Musical
Language DVD: English
Released DVD: 08 Oct 2001
Production year: 2000
Format DVD

Jazz - A Film By Ken Burns (4 discs) (2000)

Sign up Jazz - A Film By Ken Burns DVD

Or you can rent each disc individually:

  • Critics' reviews (2) of Jazz - A Film By Ken Burns

    View all

  • "...This epic production surrounds its stories and civic lessons with an almost unquenchable torrent of great music..." -- 3 out of 4 stars

    • USA Today
    • Posted 11 Mar 2005

  • "...Mr. Burns's elegiac thoroughness...is given a big lift by the artfully assembled music....JAZZ is full of dreams."

    • New York Times
    • Posted 11 Mar 2005

  • Most helpful member's review of Jazz - A Film By Ken Burns

    View all
  • 3 out of 3 people found this review helpful

    Rated - 4 stars

    Good introduction but not for enthusiasts..

    This series played a major role in turning me into a ardent lover of jazz: the sights and sounds you'll encounter are truly memorable and moving, whetting your appetite for more. But as so many other jazz fans have noted, vast swathes of the music (like the last four decades) are brazenly and inexcusably ignored in favor of portraying the ultra-narrow, retrograde Wynton Marsalis/Stanley Crouch version of jazz history--a perspective most jazz fans and musicians vehemently disagree with.

    A good introduction into Jazz but real enthusiasts will be a little dissapointed.

      • A customer from Wales
      • Posted 07 Jul 2004 12:34

  • Most recent members' review of Jazz - A Film By Ken Burns

    View all
  • 2 out of 2 people found this review helpful

    Rated - 5 stars

    Jazz: The History-Volume 1

    In this introductory volume, we are taken right back to the roots of Jazz, which originated in the naval port of New Orleans, sometime around the beginning of the 20th Century. The dominant musical styles at this period were European Classical Music & Opera, Folk Music, the Rag, and the Blues. The first recorded Jazz disc did not appear until 1917.

    It seems there were a great many contributory factors which led to this being the true birthplace of Jazz:

    -including the mixture of races - Europeans (French, Spanish, English, Scots etc), Black people from the Caribbean and the West Africa, and the Creoles of Colour;

    -the mixture of different musical styles, including brass band marching music, European salon music, and the complex rhythmic drum beats from Africa - including Call & Response;

    -the enforced living and playing together of all these disparate groups of people, in the hot-house of New Orleans - before the state legislature enacted a racially motivated segregation policy, which moved the Blacks & Creoles into the poorer Storey Ville area, in 1897.

    This first DVD explores all these themes, with a great many photographs, and musical excerpts, to illustrate the history. The early Jazz greats included Buddy Bolden, Jelly Roll Morton, and of course the young, gifted Louis Armstrong. He would later emerge as the first true genius of Jazz, who almost single-handedly wrote the text-book on improvisatory trumpet playing.

    Altogether a great DVD series to be savoured.

      • JackSpratt from Glasgow
      • Posted 29 Apr 2005 03:51

  • More like this

    View all
    Showing 1 to 4 of 11

    loading

Find cinemas


Rating breakdown

340 Member ratings
  • 100
77
  • 90
41
  • 80
74
  • 70
52
  • 60
38
  • 50
20
  • 40
10
  • 30
9
  • 20
10
  • 10
9

Related user collection

Buy from the LOVEFiLM shop

    • Jazz - A Film By Ken Burns

    • Jazz - A Film By Ken Burns
    • DVD: £57.93
      Free Delivery
    • RRP £78.29 (you save: 26%)
      • For the third part of his American Trilogy--following THE CIVIL WAR and BASEBALL--Ken Burns takes on jazz, "that most American of art forms." The 10-part, 19-hour film begins with the music's roots ...